On this day (August 25) in the year 1855, the following article appeared in
"Ballou's Pictorial & Drawing Room Companion" (Vol. IX, No. 8; page 125):
- - - - - - - - - - -
DAGUERREOTYPES, ETC.
We will not venture to say how many daguerreotypists there are in Boston, for
we are not in the vein of hunting up statistics, but they are certainly
numerous. You can hardly walk two blocks, in the busy part of the city, without
coming on a showcase, with its assortment of specimens of heads of the people.
If you have seen one of these cases, you have seen all. There is the militia
officer, in full regimentals, not colored, but with a little powdered lake on
the sash and a little powdered gold on the epaulettes, to make him look the
grander. There is the family group, frozen into wax statuary attitudes, and
looking very solemn, as if they were assembled for a funeral. There is the fast
young man, taken with his hat on and a cigar in his mouth; the belle of the
locality, with a vast quantity of plaited hair and plated jewelry, looking
supremely killing; and there is the pet baby, a podgy creature, with a
hydrocephalic head and dropsical body, and swollen legs incarcerated in barred
stockings. There is the intellectual man of the locality, with a tall forehead
and piercing eye; and the young poet, a pretty looking fellow, but infinitely
conceited. But why enumerate? Each show-case is a little microcosm. It
reflects a little world. There is something interesting in the very worst of
these daguerreotypes, because there must be something of nature in all of them.
Nor are these images the investments of Vanity Fair. It is a vulgar mistake to
suppose that every sitter is influenced by personal vanity, and a desire to
transmit his features to posterity. In nine cases out of ten, sitters are
reluctant, and if the truth were told, a large majority of them sit to gratify
the importunity of friends, and obey the call of affection rather than of
vanity. These duplicates in the show case are so many love-tokens, all except
the fast young man, and who knows but that he was solicited by some ardent
admirer, humble follower, or fond ladye-love? Because you and I don't fancy
smooth raven-lock dripping with unguents, a beaver worn over one eye, and an
immortalized cigar, it does not follow that such may not be the ideal of some
dear friend of Caesar's, male or female. It was the remark of a "celebrated
Roman consul," that there was no disputing about tastes, and no man is without
friends. The footpad that Don Juan shot in the environs of London sent his
ensanguined cravat to "Sal." This young gentleman in the daguerreotype case has
his Dulcinea--ay, and there is a touch of romance and poetry gilding his life.
He thinks of her he loves when he "runs with the machine," or stakes his last
dollar on the prowess of the "game chicken," or the Lancashire slasher. The
utmost that can be said is that his notions of glory differ from ours. But the
crowd is collecting round the show-case, and we give place to other admirers of
the fine arts.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Posted for your enjoyment. Gary W. Ewer
--------------------------------------------------------------
08-25-97